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S i d e b a r
My Big Fat Greek Welcome
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This Rock
Volume 17, Number 2
 February 2006 
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The importance of hospitality in the ancient world is evidenced by its being a central theme in Homer’s epic travelogue The Odyssey. In his ten-year struggle to get home to Greece after the Trojan wars, Odysseus is volleyed about the Mediterranean Sea at the mercy of strangers for his subsistence. Sometimes he is greeted with feasts; sometimes he very nearly is the feast. Fortunately, he frequently is treated as the Greek tradition demanded: He is given a meal, shelter, and parting gifts. This Greek concept was called philoxenia, or love for the foreigner. Menelaus demonstrates it when his servant announces: "Menelaus, there are some strangers come here, two men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we take their horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can?"
Menelaus was very angry and said, "Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper; you and I have stayed often enough at other people’s houses before we got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in peace henceforward (4).
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